Chapter 955: It Was Right Infront Of Us

For several seconds, the underground reservoir chamber fell into an unusually complete silence.

The Alchemy students stopped comparing their formulas. A Forgemastery student holding a metal fitting slowly lowered his tools, while another turned away from the conduit housing he had been inspecting. Even the two students transporting materials near the eastern support pillars paused to look toward the blond boy standing beside the central workstation.

Dylan Wellington was grinning.

Not his usual mischievous grin, either. This was something considerably more concerning. His green eyes were bright with satisfaction, one hand rested triumphantly against his hip, and he looked as though he had just won an argument against every engineer who had ever lived.

A girl near the Alchemy tables leaned toward her classmate.

"Did he just insult the people who built this place?"

"I think so."

"Why?"

"I don’t know."

Another student lowered his voice. "He’s been working for over ten hours."

"Eleven, nearly."

"Oh."

A brief silence followed.

Then the first girl whispered, "So he’s finally broken."

"Honestly, I’m surprised he lasted this long."

A few nearby students exchanged uncertain looks.

Dylan had spent most of the day studying damaged mechanisms, comparing alchemical results, and arguing with calculations that stubbornly refused to produce anything useful. The others had grown accustomed to his occasional complaints, questionable jokes, and increasingly personal insults directed at the reservoir.

But bursting into triumphant laughter and verbally attacking its long-dead designers was something else entirely.

Sheila looked toward Edith.

Edith looked back.

Neither appeared particularly reassured.

’Has the work finally gotten to him?’ Sheila wondered.

She knew Dylan could be theatrical, but his sudden excitement was strange even by his standards. There was a difference between ordinary foolishness and whatever this was.

Edith’s eyes narrowed slightly.

’Eleven hours of continuous work. Repeated failures. Very little rest.’

She considered the situation.

’I suppose this was inevitable.’

Beside them, Liam observed Dylan without changing his expression.

He had known Dylan long enough to understand that unusual behavior was not necessarily evidence of anything being wrong. In fact, the opposite was occasionally true.

Nevertheless, this particular display was impressive.

’He’s insulting dead people with enough enthusiasm to wake them.’

Sheila finally stepped forward.

"Dylan?"

He turned toward her immediately.

"Yes, Commander?"

"Are you feeling alright?"

Dylan stared at her.

Then his expression shifted into something approaching offense.

"Alright?"

Sheila hesitated.

"Yes."

"Sheila, I am not merely alright." He spread both arms, looking positively delighted. "I am magnificent. Enlightened. Euphoric!"

The word echoed through the chamber.

Dylan slapped one hand against his chest.

"I feel as though my brain has spent eleven hours being beaten with a shovel, only to suddenly discover that the shovel was the answer all along!"

The silence deepened.

Sheila slowly looked toward Edith again.

Edith’s expression suggested her concerns had increased considerably.

Liam, meanwhile, considered whether anyone should remove the nearby alchemical equipment before Dylan began celebrating with open flames.

’Perhaps he really has lost it.’

"Dylan," Ariana said.

Her voice was gentle, though there was unmistakable impatience beneath it.

She stood beside the workstation, delicate glasses resting against her nose and several pages of calculations spread across the table before her. Unlike some of the others, she had not immediately concluded that Dylan had suffered a mental breakdown.

She had been working beside him long enough to recognize the difference between his ordinary nonsense and the rare moments when something genuinely important captured his attention.

And right now, beneath all that ridiculous excitement, he looked certain.

"What did you discover?" she asked.

Dylan turned toward her.

His grin widened.

"Ariana, my brilliant, beautiful friend, we have been approaching this entire miserable contraption from the wrong direction."

She folded her arms.

"How?"

"Think about the reservoir."

"I have been doing that all day."

"Exactly! The central crystal, the conduit network, the regulating lattice, the circulation cycle. All of it."

Ariana waited.

Dylan gestured toward the immense crystal suspended within its supporting structure.

"The crystal is supposed to receive Myst, stabilize it, retain the charge, and distribute that energy through the reservoir’s connected systems. The conduits regulate the transfer, the outer lattice maintains proper circulation, and the distribution channels feed the mechanisms above."

"Yes."

"But every time we introduce Myst into the crystal, the internal circulation becomes unstable. The charge disperses before the cycle can sustain itself."

"Yes."

"And increasing the supply doesn’t fix it. Altering the stabilizing mixture changes the response, but the crystal still fails to retain a stable charge."

Ariana’s expression became mildly unimpressed.

"Dylan."

"And the surrounding conduits react inconsistently because the flow isn’t being maintained properly."

"Dylan."

"The entire process breaks down before the reservoir can—"

"We know."

He stopped.

Ariana adjusted her glasses.

"We know all of that. We established the circulation problem hours ago. We’ve tested different Myst inputs, adjusted the stabilization mixtures, inspected the conduits, and recorded the crystal’s reactions. None of those observations is new."

Several Alchemy students nodded.

Ariana looked at him expectantly.

"You said the original designers made a mistake. What mistake?"

Dylan stared at her for a moment.

Then he smiled.

"Exactly."

Ariana blinked.

"Exactly what?"

"Everything you just said."

She sighed softly.

"Dylan, please."

"No, listen. We’ve been a room full of highly educated idiots."

A nearby Alchemy student frowned.

"Speak for yourself."

"I am!" Dylan declared. "I’m including myself. That’s what makes the insult fair."

Liam glanced toward Sheila.

Sheila looked as though she was debating whether this conversation required intervention.

Edith simply waited.

Dylan’s expression gradually lost some of its exaggerated amusement.

He reached for an old engineering diagram and spread it across the table.

"Here’s what we’ve been missing."

He placed one finger against the section representing the central crystal.

"We’ve been treating this as the starting point. Restore the crystal, establish internal circulation, build a stable charge, and use that charge to power the regulating lattice and distribution network."

Ariana nodded.

"That’s the sequence we’ve been attempting."

"And under normal conditions, that sequence makes sense."

Dylan moved his finger toward the surrounding network of conduits.

"But the regulating lattice isn’t just a distribution system."

Ariana’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Dylan tapped the diagram.

"It’s also what allows the crystal to maintain stable circulation in the first place."

The chamber seemed to quiet around the workstation.

He continued, now speaking with the intense clarity that occasionally emerged when his considerable intelligence stopped competing with his personality.

"The lattice regulates the return flow. It prevents the Myst entering the crystal from dispersing unevenly through the internal channels. Without that regulation, the crystal can’t establish the stable cycle we’re trying to create."

Ariana looked toward the reservoir.

Then back at the diagram.

Dylan pointed between the two components.

"The crystal needs the lattice to stabilize. But the lattice normally gets its operating power from the crystal."

Edith’s expression sharpened.

Sheila frowned thoughtfully.

"So each requires the other?"

"Precisely!" Dylan said. "We’ve been trying to restart a crystal that requires an active regulating system, while leaving that regulating system inactive because we’re waiting for the crystal to power it."

He spread his hands.

"Beautiful design. Exceptionally efficient. Wonderful when everything is already working."

His grin returned.

"Absolutely miserable when the entire system has been dead for who knows how long."

Ariana was no longer looking at him.

Her attention had settled on the engineering diagram.

’The lattice regulates the return flow...’

She mentally retraced their experiments.

The crystal had accepted initial Myst input several times. That much was confirmed. But each attempt had produced unstable circulation, even when the alchemical composition was adjusted correctly.

The irregularities had appeared most strongly at the point where the incoming Myst should have completed its first return cycle.

They had interpreted that as evidence of damage within the crystal’s internal stabilization process.

But what if the internal process was not supposed to stabilize itself independently?

What if the surrounding infrastructure had always provided the missing regulation?

’Then the failed reactions weren’t necessarily rejection,’ Ariana thought. ’We were never completing the conditions required for circulation.’

She looked toward one of the repaired conduit housings.

"Dylan..."

He noticed the change immediately.

"Oh, you’re getting there."

Ariana turned back to him.

"But that still leaves the original problem. If the lattice requires the crystal’s output, how was the reservoir intended to recover after a complete shutdown?"

Dylan’s smile became positively insufferable.

"That," he said, tapping a narrow line on the old diagram, "is where our beloved ancient geniuses get interesting."